What’s the Hot Topic in New Zealand this week?

Every one of you thought it was the folk from the United Kingdom that talked more about the changeable weather. Didn’t you? I beg to differ.

Us down here in New Zealand we usually experience a few hot days, then back down to a shall we say “a more inviting temperature”. Then there are those that move to our neighbouring country Australia for an enjoyable lifestyle which of course really means better weather. In turn, means boasting about how pleasant the weather is over the small ditch that is between us both.

Nightly weather reports on the local TV channel highlighting the vast continent of Australia with an angry orange-red. Then to make matters worse, we are shown heart-breaking photographs of Brumbies [wild horses] dead from dehydration. This indeed illustrates how dangerous the heat problem is for our neighbours.

The Aussies.

Our cuzzie bros and their female counterparts from across the ditch must be wishing that they were back in New Zealand and maybe starting to plan their great escape from the big burn.

Like most Kiwis, I have a lot of expat friends and family living in Australia and have spent hours on the blower listening to boasts about how warm and sunny it is in their part of paradise.

When I’ve tried talking them into coming home they’ve said sorry, but they’ve acclimatised and just couldn’t stand the cold. My retaliation has been to warn those expats that in a couple of years they will be desperate to get back to where they once belonged when the sunburnt country burns up. And verily it has come to pass.

But some would say I should not be so smug.

On the day some parts of the Bay of Plenty are now experiencing 33 degrees, I was walking and felt myself moving faster to that next spot of shade. Then came the time to do some grocery shopping.

Free aircon for a few hours.

It does indeed take that long when you move at a snail’s pace, up and down the aisles, muttering away to yourself about not finding that elusive can of whatever it I was pretending to search out. The alternative was not good. Hair that could be mistaken for a 1980’s lousy hairdo and feeling like a jockey’s sweatbox.

So I stayed inside and again blessed supermarkets for their excellent air conditioning. Then I stood by the long row of yoghurts like a shag on a rock with my wings spread out and legs apart. I wasn’t the only one. Others were flapping their arms about trying to cool off. Trying to do it discreetly like me. Though they did seem to be more like “real shoppers” and had more in their trolleys than me.

Eventually, I had to purchase a few groceries. We really did need them. Then I reminded myself there was another blessing in the form of the air conditioner in the car. Even in that small space, I managed a flap or two.

That day it hit 33 with a high 21 degs at night.

I wondered if the supermarket ever thought of opening 24hours. Unfortunately, it did not. We do have an aircon at No.22. It’s a noisy contraption that needs a boot out the door. Not to worry we won’t have this heat for long. As I remind myself this is New Zealand and not Australia.

Then there is the wind.

Meaning that there is always drama when there is wind. Who needs Sky TV when you’ve got the real stuff happening as branches, wheely bins and garden furniture scrambled into each other, and what looked like a sheet wrenched from a washing line, in a heap on the street.

The experts say it has nothing to do with the super moon, but this crazy weather just happened to occur in its wake. We have two more set to show up before the end of March.

As the sun falls and when the humidity gets too much, you can hear people out on their balconies murmuring as they cool down at No.22. Reminding me of those kitsch American movies set in the south where folk sit on a porch swing.

No room for large porch swings at No.22.

So when the heat gets to you, what do you do? I have been known to get myself out of bed at 2 am and put both feet under a cold tap, with a huge sign and thoughts of that ever inviting coolness of any supermarket aisle.

Or perhaps a stroll down a deserted beach at night sounds more inviting and romantic?

Post navigation

77 thoughts on “What’s the Hot Topic in New Zealand this week?”

I’ve been travelling in the North and South Island during February and experienced the hot weather on the Coromandel peninsula and the cold and torrential rain in Fox glacier. The contrasts of your country have been awesome. I’m off home via Sydney on Saturday ending my trip of a lifetime. As a retired art teacher this experience will no doubt influence my artwork when I return to Wales.

That’s wonderful you have seen varied terrain and the different towns/cities while touring New Zealand.
We certainly do have extreme differences from the coastal to alpine areas.
We spent a bit of time in Wales last summer and many of your diverse landscapes reminded of us of NZ.

You will much to paint when you get home. Enjoyed your comment, thank you.

We do love to talk about the weather in England but nowhere near as much as you Kiwis. Everyone we met in NZ was obsessed with the weather and perhaps rightly so as its so changeable. Couldn’t handle those crazy Aussie temperatures though. Absolutely awful. there is a lot to be said for cool 20 degree summer days and cold winters. Keep cool Suze.

Thanks for thinking of us here across the ditch Suzanne! It’s been sweltering 🙂 I love the photo over the beach the colours are superb! You’ve summed it all pretty well and at this stage we have had only 1 day under 30 in January and that day it was 29.9!!! Stay cool!

Thanks Deb, yes “Australia” has been mentioned quite a few times in weather conversations in the last week or so 🙂 Mid twenties for the next few days I hope. Have a group walk tomorrow that doesn’t start until 10am so lets hope its coolish!! Keep cool too.

HI Suzanne, yes Australian summers can be stifling especially with the humidity. I have enjoyed my three visits to NZ and have been blessed each time with pretty good weather. I know what you mean about the airconditioning. We visited Thailand and it was so hot we went Mall Hopping just to stay in the aircond. Thanks for sharing and linking up with us at #MLSTL and I’ll visit NZ anytime 🙂

The heat is not so much a problem it is the humidity that is the killer of energy! Asia and further up in the Northern Territory are horrendous in summer for the humidity. That is why malls are so popular as power for locals is so expensive in Asia.
Hey, Queensland has warmer winters which we will be hopefully taking advantage of this year 🙂

It’s definitely been very warm here in Western Australia – but fortunately in the SW it always cools down in the evening – just in time for a pleasant stroll in the breeze with my lovely husband. We’re off to Qld tomorrow and I’ll be seeing what their more tropical climate is like in the middle of Summer – I hope our air bnb has air con!!
Thanks for linking up to MLSTL and I’ve shared on my SM 🙂

What a great post title – it really got me in. I am a big fan of New Zealand having often travelled there on business. Such scenery, such lovely people, but I wouldn’t trade my life on the Sunshine Coast. We are fortunate to have air conditioning which we rarely use, and a pool which we use most days. We do use our fans constantly and most of the time they are enough. So there is your weather report from Noosaville 😉

Thanks Jan and for the weather report. We love the Sunshine Coast. Both countries have many positives as well as negatives. It is where we are most comfortable is where we tend to live isn’t it! Yes, we have visited Australia on many occassions and hopefully we will get over there as a couple once again. Much prefer fans than aircon in our apartment. As live on a slight hill we get a good breeze most days. Jan, thanks for commenting.

I loved this post and your images. I really really want to visit New Zealand but I’m afraid I might want to stay and buy a house and retire there too! Yes, like you we have a propensity to discussing the weather in our house – a) because of our English roots – we were once ALWAYS talking about the weather and b) because it impacts he himself’s cycling plans! #MLSTL and shared on SM

Thanks Johanna. I do think the weather is a topic that makes for easy conversation no matter what country we happen to be living in or visiting. Yes, cycling in heat is hard so is walking even though I got out of bed just after 5am!! Though had to wait until it became light. I hope you do get to visit our fair shores. Both Australia and New Zealand have many positive aspects and an negative ones! Hard to pick a perfect country to live in 🙂

We’re in the middle of a cold, snowy winter here in Utah, so warm sounds wonderful right now. Then again, at least we’re not as cold as the midwest U.S. Your photographs are absolutely stunning. Thanks for sharing #MLSTL

I would take a little of that heat here right now. We are heading to ’27 degrees F tonight with windchills at minus 60 degrees F. Everything is shut down for the next two days while we brace for the cold and hope our water pipes don’t freeze!

I was just reading about the cold blast happening in parts of the Northern Hemisphere. From one extreme to the other! Hopefully not too many of your water pipes freeze! Though at those temperatures it would be hard for them not to be even if you did have them insulated?

Wishing you milder weather ahead with low humidity, Suzanne. We had a major snow storm yesterday. Our high for the next two days is minus 15C but it’s just a cold snap and by Saturday it will be back to normal winter temp. #MLSTL

It does feel milder today though still high in humidity. In some parts of NZ it is much warmer. Compared to many countries it isn’t hot at all, for most NZers it is. Gives the press and bloggers something to write about 🙂 Yes, -15degs is cold, we experienced that in Northern France, didn’t get much snow. That was a highlight for us walking around when it was snowing 🙂 The world is certainly getting more weather bombs or is it our memories playing tricks on us?

Thank goodness the heat doesn’t last long here, Sue. Our house is cooler than outside with the doors and windows all open but at night we daren’t sit with lights on because some pretty big bugs consider it an invitation to join us. I think a hammock on the deck is a good plan for when it gets unbearable at night. Hope it cools down soon. xx

You are right Wendy, the heat doesn’t last long here. Though the heat isn’t the problem the humidity is the killer of any energy. Just got back from my 10km and was one big sweat ball 🙂 Not a pretty picture!! We leave our doors and windows open at night, though we aren’t on ground level which helps with ventilation! xx

For me it’s not having air-con and sweating profusely at night when travelling in SE Asia.

Not sure how I survived 20 years on our first boat without air-con in north Queensland – I’ll never know. At least our 2nd boat we bought in NY had 3! Americans are over-kill, but the air-cons came in handy in Venezuela on the marina. 😉

I am not sure how we survived 45+degs in Turkey without aircon!! The best thing was the fans and the houses were cooler than outside. What is the killer with heat is the humidity which is what we have now similar though not as bad as in Queensland or Asia.

A few more earthquakes and the ditch between us may fill in and we can share the good and the not so good aspects of both countries. I love where I am on the Sunshine Coast, a cold shower every day 🙂 NZ is a beautiful and interesting place. Love your pics.
Kathleen

I had to laugh at your comment Kathleen. Yes, who knows what will happen in the future! With the way things are going with the weather anything is possible. There has been chatter about combining both countries for quite a while. I personally can’t see it happening. If it would be beneficial for both then maybe we should consider it. Yes, we enjoy the Sunshine Coast which is much lovelier than the Gold Coast and in my opinion less commercialised

High temps do not make me happy one bit. The walk on the beach–yes –but when it is a bit cooler. We had the pleasure of visiting your lovely country after a year of living and working in Australia and we fell in love with the country and the people. So much better than the Aussies. But don’t tell them that. 🙂 Coming over from Senior Salon today and so happy I did. Thanks for a lovely post.

Thanks for your welcome comment, Beth Ann. Pleased you enjoyed your trip down to New Zealand. Our culture is unique in many ways, and like every country, we have visited we have positive and negative aspects.

The world climate does appear to be crazy and I have been thinking for years that soon Australians will have nowhere to go as even the coastal cities are burning up! I wouldn’t mind a share of your heat though, I can offer you wind and rain in exchange 😀 Though NZ probably has enough of those…

That’s not an attractive exchange, so I shall decline though I will send you some heat 😊 More rain down the west coast of the South Island than the North.
We have had strong wind off and on since our return. For me wind is the most annoying.

In Belgium, people talk about the weather all the time as well. Mostly the rain, though. And, when it hits thirty degrees. That temperature sounds perfect to me!

Yet, in extremely humid climates, I would search for air conditioned stores as well. SE Asia comes to mind. On our sailboat in the tropics, we suffered through some incredibly hot and humid summers (Grenada and French Polynesia come to mind). On those days without a breeze, even jumping in the azure blue water didn’t do the trick. You sit at your computer, sweat dripping on the keyboard. Not fun. Moving as little as possible and favoring the shade at all times was the only thing one could try. Our boat, like most others, didn’t have air conditioning. For that, we usually had the wind.

Thanks for sharing your story Liesbet. We are certainly not experiencing that high humidity, just enough that air conditioning and wind are needed. 30 degs is too warm for me though silly thing is we handled hotter weather in Turkey and mostly without the humidity which makes a big difference. Hot weather does sap energy which is a real negative for us at the moment.

I’m sorry that you are having uncomfortable weather but it sure made for some gorgeous pictures! Here in Southern California, we are enjoying lovely summer temps in January. We hope that it doesn’t mean that we’ll have grueling heat in a few months when it actually is summer. Climate change is here and it’s scary. Stay cool as possible… go grocery shopping often!

Thanks Janis I will. At least I don’t have to work in it. Or not luckier enough to work in a supermarket 😏
Yes, I agree climate change is here and hopefully you don’t experience a very hot summer with fires.

Well I’ve managed to survive the two occasions the UK has experienced plus 38 but it wasn’t nice. One day we will clock40 and that will be terrible. I kinda cope with mid 30s these days because in London it’s not uncommon. But it’s no fun and anything in the 20s is frankly enough thank you very much.

Have to agree 25degs and below are doable. To think we handled 46degs in Turkey two summers ago is hard to believe!! Will be interesting to see if the UK has another heatwave. One thing about Turkey is that most of the houses are coolish in hot weather.

Very unusual hot weather for us. We had 30degrees in Clevedon, UK last summer. I think the weather is serving up some extreme weather. Unfortunately, for wild animals with no assistance they are so vulnerable in hot weather in Australia which has more hotter weather than NZ. X

It’s the heat at night that would bug me the most. The cold tap treatment on the feet sounds good. I’ve been known to have a cold shower at 2 am. I read yesterday someone’s advice to put wet socks on before going to bed!